CREATURE FEATURES
By: Dan CzirakyDate: Friday, October 20, 2000
John Stanley, one-time host of San Francisco's Creature Features show, published the first edition of The Creature Features Movie Guide: An A to Z Encyclopedia to the Cinema of the Fantastic, or Is There a Mad Doctor in the House? back in 1981, beating Michael J. Weldon's The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film to the book stores by a whole year. It was a funky first edition, full of concise, well-written reviews of science-fiction, horror, and fantasy films; it had an amusing cover painting and some cute artwork by Kenn Davis to represent the letters of the alphabetical film listings.
It was followed by three updated editions, all with great covers and self-deprecating titles like Revenge of the Creature Features Movie Guide and John Stanley's Creature Features Movie Guide Strikes Again. Then, in 1997, Stanley went mainstream on us, writing a fifth edition that was then stripped of the goofy title, cover painting, etc. Oh, it was still packed with reviews, but the packaging of the book had as much charm as a roll of generic toilet paper. Creature Features had been (gasp!) 'Maltin-ized!'
Alas, the latest, sixth edition isn't much better. Sure, it's been returned to its previous trade paperback-sized glory, but it still isn't the funky, cool tome it once was. (Take Stanley up on his offer to score a copy of the rare first edition for $25, and you'll see what I mean.)
There's been plenty of genre product since 1997, and Stanley's opinions on the likes of The Blair Witch Project ('a story about the most elemental instinct in mansurvival motivated by abject fear'), Blade ('a soulless movie without the beat of a heart'), Star Wars: Episode IThe Phantom Menace ('this is never going to be Shakespeare'), The Matrix ('a superlative combination of compelling ideas and stunning visual action'), and 1999's The Mummy ('one helluva roller-coaster ride through the pyramid district') are just as valid as the next genre expert's, especially since he's spent thirty years covering it for the San Francisco Chronicle. (I must admit, however, that I'm suspicious of any critic who just didn't 'get' 1995's Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which Stanley labeled 'an unwatchable travesty and utter fiasco which has not a single funny moment in it.')
Like the various genre movie guides out there these days, Stanley also provides a section on video, laserdisc, and DVD distributors, including mail-order addresses. He also mentions a few web sites of interest, including his own (www.netwizards.net/~creature).
In a market already crowded with genre movie/video guides by such well-respected writers as The Phantom of the Movies and former MST3K head writer/star Mike Nelsonnot to mention the seemingly endless parade of VideoHound Guidesa return to Stanley's quirkier format of the past might have been in order. Berkley could have at least thrown a new cover on it, instead of recycling the 1997 edition's cover with 'Updated Edition' stamped across the top. Boy, that must have set them back some vending machine change, huh? Sure, Stanley can keep up with the best of them, dubbed 'the Leonard Maltin of horror' by Fangoria magazine (is that really a compliment, though?). It's just that the book could use a little razzle-dazzle instead of the 'ho-hum, here it is, take it or leave' release it was given.
CREATURE FEATURES: THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND HORROR MOVIE GUIDE--UPDATED EDITION, by John Stanley. Berkley Boulevard, August 2000, 596 pp., $12.00
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